Based on a play by Shaw. (I think the third for Oz TV after Village Wooing and Candida).
Premise
In Tavazzano in May 1796, after the battle of Lodi, Napoleon meets a young Lady who he believes could be a spy, but to whom he is attracted.
Cast
- Edward Hepple as Napoleon
- Felicity Young as the Lady
- Stewart Weller as Guiseppe Grando
- David Mitchell as the Lieutenant
Original play
The play was produced in 1897. A link to the complete text is here.
Other production
The BBC did it it on radio in 1937 and 1947 and 1962, and on TV in 1939, 1947 and 1950.
Production
It was Hepple's first production in Melbourne though he had done numerous TV plays such as The Square Ring, The Little Woman and The Patriots.
While he made the production he rehearsed a Shaw play at the Union Theatre, Arms and the Man and The No Hoper. "I've never acted in a Shaw play before and here I am in two," said Hepple to the TV Times. "My greatest difficulty is the scarcity of books on Napoleon at this part of his life."
Reception
The Sydney Morning Herald said director Muir "thew away much of the impact" of the central situation by casting Edward Hepple as Naploeon saying Hepple "in many ways an excellent actor but he is better at portraying craftiness than common sense" and saying it was " an outwardly competent production that missed most of the special slang and flavour of Shaw's view of history."
1967 Australian TV Production
For some reason the play was re filmed by the ABC in 1967 as an episode of Love and War.
 |
| Canberra Times 24 April 1963 p 29 |
 |
| The Age 14 Feb 1963 Supplement p 1 |
 |
| SMH 25 April 1963 p 8 |
 |
| SMH 22 April 1963 p 15 |
 | |||
| The Age 14 Feb 1963 p 33 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment